This invention relates generally to firearm safety lock devices, and more particularly, to gun lock hardening arrangements for making such locks more resistant to tampering or disabling by unauthorized persons.
Thousand of handguns, shotguns and rifles are purchased every year by citizens for use in sporting events, such as hunting or trap and skeet shooting, or for use in home protection. Typically, guns are stored at one""s home or apartment in drawers, closets or even under the bed. While a minority of gun owners have gun safes to store their guns, most guns owners store their guns in unlocked areas of the home accessible to others dwelling there. As such, guns provide a danger to children or adolescents whose curiosity may lead them to find and play with a gun. Additionally, a child finding a firearm may take it to show friends or take it to school. While adults may believe that guns are safely put away, children and adolescents always seem to find them, and as a result, fatalities and injuries resulting from the accidental discharge of firearms, particularly by children, has become problematic. Also the intentional use of guns by children against classmates and teachers in schools has been increasing over the last several years. Suicides by use of firearms are also at an alarming rate. In response to the rise of this danger, the US Congress and many state legislative bodies throughout the country have enacted or are in the process of enacting legislation requiring that each new purchase of a gun be accompanied by the purchase of a suitable lock. Additionally, states are creating strict requirements that gun locks must pass to resist tampering and attacks that could disable or remove a gun lock. This is in part a response to the large number of commercially available locks that are of poor quality and unreliable, and the material used to construct certain gun trigger guards that can be easily compromised, allowing the removal of the gun lock.
Conventional gun locking devices typically have two sides which clamp around the trigger guard of the gun to prevent access to the trigger, such as the devices shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,191,158 xe2x80x9cTrigger Guard for a Firearmxe2x80x9d, U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,681 xe2x80x9cSecurity Device for Firearmsxe2x80x9d, U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,281 xe2x80x9cGun Trigger Lockxe2x80x9d, U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,842 xe2x80x9cGun Trigger Lockxe2x80x9d,and U.S. Pat. No. 3,624,945 xe2x80x9cUniversal Self-Conforming Trigger Lock for Firearmsxe2x80x9d. Other conventional gun locking devices are designed to immobilize the trigger as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,153,360 xe2x80x9cGun Lockxe2x80x9d. Some gun lock devices have been developed without key locking arrangements to allow quick access to the gun by adults but rendered safe against children who may gain access to the gun, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,221 xe2x80x9cGun Lock Using Manual Pressurexe2x80x9d and U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,119 xe2x80x9cGun Trigger Blocking Structurexe2x80x9d assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Other more complex structural gun lock arrangements are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,624,945 and 4,499,681. U.S. Pat. No. 3,624,945 discloses a trigger lock with two complementary side elements which are compressed together around the gun trigger guard by a complex internal ratchet lever locking mechanism in the locking assemblage. The side elements carry a plurality of spaced-apart yieldable plungers in proximity to the trigger and guard to prevent shifting or movement of the lock assembly. U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,681 discloses a fire arm security device with a pair of opposed trigger guard covers, one of the covers having an elongate protruding housing containing a latching portion of a latch member and the other cover formed with an opening in which is disposed a catch member adapted to engage and retain the latching portion when the covers are pressed together. The latch member may be moved out of engagement with the catch member to release the covers by means of a manual actuator which is controlled by a combination lock contained in the cover.
Many of these above-described prior art gun locking devices are limited to accidental discharge or simple child access protection and have one or more weak areas of construction rendering them vulnerable to attack by unauthorized users. In fact some of these gun locks are removable with simple household tools, such as hacksaws and hammers, and accordingly do not provide a sufficient deterrent to persons who find guns with these locks. Further, they offer little cutting protection in advanced attempts to remove the lock or partially remove the gun""s trigger guard to circumvent the lock.
Attempts to make other types of locks secure have met with limited success. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, deadbolt locks 10 for doors have hardened pins 11 installed parallel to the direction of the deadbolt action. In operation, when locked, the deadbolt action 12 extends and seats into a receiving cavity in the side of a door frame. If there is a space between the door and the frame exposing the deadbolt action, the hardened pins resist cutting of the deadbolt action.
Other examples also exist. Key actuated high security cylinder locks 14 with a rotating tumbler 15 actuated by a key may be made more secure by placing a number of hardened inserts 16 around the tumbler as shown in FIG. 2. A ridge 15A along the tumbler cooperatively mounts into groove 14A in the cylinder lock body. The hardened inserts 16 seat in grooves 14B. The inserts 16 are designed to deter drilling the shear line of the cylinder tumbler to disable the lock.
Conventional key lock cylinders 20 primarily used for doors may have a smooth metal ring 19 circumscribing the lock, shown in FIG. 3. The ring is generally free spinning and is generally designed to prevent the use of tools such as pipe wrenches and vice grips from xe2x80x9cwrenchingxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cspinningxe2x80x9d the lock off its setting. The ring prevents the tools from getting a good grip on the lock cylinder.
Adapter rings 18 may also be used behind cylinder locks (also shown in FIG. 3). The adapter ring 18 is generally made of metal and is typically used when retrofitting a lock into a hole larger than the lock or to cover up mistakes during the lock installation, such as wood splinters when drilling the hole. The ring 18 therefore is generally intended to provide aesthetics only, not strength.
On conventional shackle type locks, the exposed shackle has been reinforced by adding a shackle guard which covers the shackle when the lock is closed. Another arrangement for toughening a portion of conventional shackle type locks is illustrated in FIG. 4. The lock body 21 houses a removable lock casing 22 which provides the mechanism for engaging the shackle 23 to lock it in place. The lock casing houses the key lock cylinder 22B and the lock pin housing section 22A. The lock casing is held within the lock by a small retainer screw 24, which screw is shielded by two pins 25. While the two pins 25 prevent sawing through the body and retainer screw from the direction indicated by arrow 26, by cutting upwardly from the bottom of the lock parallel to the pins 25 along the direction of arrow 27, the pins can be circumvented and ultimately the lock can be defeated.
Unfortunately, the above-described conventional lock security arrangements are mainly intended to protect property and documents and are not sufficiently robust for use with gun locks which require a high degree of reliability, as human life is at stake. Furthermore, these arrangements are designed to deter access to the objects they are securing, opposed to providing reinforcement for the material used in the construction of the object being secured. A reliable gun locking arrangement that is enhanced with simple yet reliable security deterrents would be an advancement in the gun locking art. It would further be an advantage in the art to provide a gun locking device that can be applied to a number of different types of guns and can be readily removed by an authorized user, but reliably prevents unauthorized use by people of all ages, including young children. An effective gun lock will save lives of the individuals who may tamper with a gun or the life of a person from accidental or intentional use. The present invention provides such improved firearm security arrangements.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide firearm security arrangements that prevents access to a gun when the gun is not in use.
Another object of the invention is to provide firearm security arrangements that are adaptable to a variety of gun locks and also handguns, rifles or shotguns.
A further object of the invention is to provide firearm security arrangements that resist cutting of the gun lock and/or trigger guard.
Still another object is to provide firearm security arrangements that are resistant to tampering by children and adolescents, protecting them from injury to themselves or others.
Gun locking arrangements for preventing unauthorized use of a firearm typically include two opposed side members that are locked together on opposite sides of a trigger guard. Generally, one of the side member has a latch pin, and the other side member has a means for receiving and clasping the end portion of the latch pin to hold the side members in fixed spaced apart relationship about the trigger. In one aspect of the invention, the latch pin is adjustable inwardly and outwardly from its side member to accommodate firearms having trigger guards of different widths and shapes. More specifically, the latch pin has a threaded hole therein, which is screwed onto a threaded shaft extending from the side member, thereby allowing the latch pin to be adjusted to a desired length.
In another aspect of the invention, one or more hardened inserts are mounted into the side members, latch pin or other gun lock components to resist cutting of the gun lock by saws or the like and otherwise toughening the lock from damage due to hammering or other physical attacks. Alternatively, the two oppositely disposed side member may have a plurality of opposed pin receiving openings therein with a plurality of pins selectively placed in various pin receiving openings in the blocks which pins will resisting cutting of the gun lock apparatus. Additional pins may be added in other pin receiving openings about the trigger and trigger guard to more securely affix the lock to the gun.
The one or more hardened inserts (such as pins) may also be molded directly into the side members in one or more directions and in selected portions of the side members. The hardened inserts are preferably arranged to prevent an attack form the bottom of the side member or the exposed side opposite the gun grip.
In order to further prevent removal of or tampering with a gun lock, the invention encompasses adding a fitting plate or escutcheon plate to one or both of the side members of the lock. The fitting or escutcheon plate would be sized and shaped to cover the trigger guard preventing access to the trigger and also tampering with the trigger guard. Various positioning of these deterrent plates with respect to the side members are possible, making them an effective addition to many types of gun locks. Hardened inserts may be added to the plates to provide additional security.
A gun cable member with low profile end caps may also be added to a gun lock. The cable and end caps preferably have holes directly there-through resulting in a low profile cable. The cable is fed through the barrel or other cavity in a gun thus preventing an ammunition round from being left or inserted in the gun. The end caps are attached to the gun lock which is locked to the gun.
The invention further contemplates immobilizing lever actions for long guns by means of a J-shaped bracket that is hooked over the top of the gun and is attached to a gun lock affixed to the lever action. Alternatively, the bracket may take the form of a U-shaped member which is seated over the top of a long gun and shackled to the lever action by a conventional lock such as a padlock. In both of these embodiments, the lever action is prevented from moving downwardly.
The construction and operation of preferred embodiments of such above-described firearm security arrangements of the present invention may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like components are designated by the same reference numbers.